Why should you have to do anything to get your Daily Kos account ready for the switchover from DK3 to DK4, now a mere eleven days away?
The answer is, of course: you don't have to. Everything will keep cranking along. Your user id remains the same and your username as well. All of your diaries and comments and recs and HRs will transfer. Your hotlist and your "subscribed" diarists will also transfer.
However, there are some things you may wish you had done if only you'd known ahead of time. That's why I'm here: to give you advance notice, and tell you why you might want to do something this week or next, before all hell breaks loose the site converts to the new software. All that information is over the jump.
When the diaries and comments and everything else are converted to the new site platform, the signature (aka "sig") on your comments—that clever saying that gets added to every comment you've made for time immemorial on Daily Kos—is going to stick. Permanently. Years of comments will have that sig superglued to them, and those comments will stay with that sig forevermore. It's like getting a comment tattoo, only laser treatments aren't allowed. (New comments on DK4 are "stuck" in real time: the comment gets whatever your sig is at that moment permanently glued to its contents.)
So take a look at your sig now. Do you like it? Will you like it in a year, or five? Do you want it stuck permanently on comments that are as much as seven years old?
If the answer is "it's fine", then no need to do anything. If the answer is "maybe I ought to change it", then think up a new one that works better...or decide to remove sigs entirely from your comments to date. Change your sig now, while you remember; February 5 will be too late.
To change or remove your sig, go to your "My Profile" page here on Daily Kos—click on your name under any comment you've written, and then click on the "My Profile" tab when your own DKos blog appears—and edit the "Comments Signature" text box. (You'll be on the "User Preferences: Account Info" page.) When you're satisfied, click on either of the "Save All Changes" buttons.
Once you've saved your new sig, make sure it looks okay on an actual comment: go to one of your comments and check it. (Be sure to refresh the page if it's a comment you already had been looking at.) The last thing you want is a typo or formatting glitch enshrined on thousands of comments with no hope of ever fixing it.
You can also do a little spring cleaning while you're at it. Most of it can be done once DK4 goes live, but if you have the bit between your teeth, why not update your Hotlist, and add or subtract items from your Diary Watchlist, aka your Subscribe list—it's the list of writers on Daily Kos whose diaries you always want to read, so it gives you links to their new diaries whenever they write any.
Both of these items are on the "Your Hotlist" page, found in the righthand column of most any DK3 page, in the Tools section of the menu lists. Click on any gray circle with a minus in it to remove an entry. If a minus sign on your hotlist has no diary title next to it, or on your diary watchlist has no diarist's name next to it, just leave it. You can't delete it yourself, but it will be removed from the list during the DK4 conversion.
To add a diary to your hotlist, view the diary and click on the white-plus-in-the-gray-circle icon located right after the diary's title. To add a diarist to your diary watchlist, just find one of their diaries and click on Subscribe next to their byline. (If it says Unsubscribe, then you already subscribe to them.)
Spring cleaning isn't necessary, and it is winter; do it if the mood strikes you. If not, you can do it on DK4 when it's really spring.
Here's a quick trick to get around a quirk of the new site. You'll have heard of the Stream: it's a way for you to see all of the diarists, tags, and groups you like to read regularly in a single chronological list (latest one at the top), so you're less likely to miss any of them. In fact, your Diary Watchlist will be the core of this list.
However, this list will never show any of your own diaries as it's currently constituted. In fact, if you try to add yourself to the list, it'll shoot you down with a snooty error message.
Some of us, however, find it convenient to have our own diaries in our stream: we only have to look in one place to find out what's changing (new comments, etc.) with all the diaries we're interested in, including our own.
Assuming they don't shut this down, you can Subscribe to yourself. Go to one of your diaries, and click on the Subscribe link right next your byline. That adds you to your diary watchlist, which becomes your "Following" list on DK4 and the contents of your Stream. If you don't like having your own diaries in your stream after a few days or weeks, you can always delete yourself from the list. But you won't be able to get back on it, unless kos changes his mind.
Update: kos has indeed changed his mind just today, and you will soon be able to add yourself to your own stream (by following yourself). So if you don't want to bother with the quick trick, you'll be able to take care of this when (or shortly after) DK4 goes live.
Other preparedness activities include investigating the beta site, which is here, to see how it might work. As you look around, if you'd like more information about what you're seeing, or where to find a DK3 feature on DK4, you can look at the DK4 FAQ on the dKosopedia.
Do be aware that the DK4 beta site is a beta site, which means that people are testing the software even as you're exploring it. Testing means they're trying to find any errors before the site goes live, and they may find (and demonstrate) one while you're there, which may cause you to see odd things, like a moose galloping on the Recommended list. Or a photo as the title of a diary, or a group name that's a photo instead. These will be fixed; the oddness is transient. Don't be alarmed, be charmed: it's happening now, so it doesn't happen after February 4.
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Many people were prepared with excellent comments today, and sent their nominations to the Top Comments mailbox by the 9:30pm Eastern Time deadline. The address of our mailbox for top comments submissions remains:
TopComments AT gmail DOT com
(change " AT " to "@" and " DOT " to ".")
Anyone can send great comments to our address. Be sure to include the direct link to a comment—the URL—which is available from that comment's date/time; we need that to find your choice. Please always include your Daily Kos user name in the body of your message, so we can credit you properly. If you send a writeup with the link, we are able to include that, too, though we reserve the right to edit.
From Angie in WA State:
I usually send in witty or sarcastic remarks which merit a bit of laughter from a larger audience... and sometimes an anomalous ironic comment that touches a nerve.
But every once in a while I find a comment truly deserving of the appellation: Top Comment.
This comment by Louise is one of them.
From phonegery (writeup mostly by sardonyx):
There is an alternative to the "trickle-down theory", and after RFK Lives discusses his personal views of the problems, leftyboy666 distills its essence.
From SpamNunn:
Now this was really funny, only because I initially wasn't sure if it was real or not.
From BeninSC:
How many times have I thought this? Thanks to zeiben for putting it into words!
From Hedwig:
In Julie Gulden's diary on Michele Bachmann's rebuttal to the SOTU, MagisterLudi has an obvious, but truthiness word refudiation...
From KelleyRN2 (aka Nurse Kelley):
I recently warned rubyr away from a thread with a "right fighter", explaining that the type does not want to exchange ideas; right fighters aren't happy until you admit the error of your ways. It was a lightbulb moment for rubyr...who just happens to be a poet. Enjoy!
From sardonyx (your overly prepared Monday diarist):
In the "things we'd like to see" department, gooderservice nails one we'd all like to see.
ActivistGuy says we need a wobblier world.
In a thread starting with Meteor Blades noting that there are terrible abuses in juvenile detention, NearlyNormal says that we may shut down the juvenile prison system here in CA, and KJG52 points out other problems with the California justice system.
Please add your own comment finds below!
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Finally, we have today's top mojo using my revision of the cskendrick-devised mojo-to-Excel process.
First, Top Mojo excluding Cheers and Jeers, miscellaneous cute animals, search-identifiable tip jars, and first diary comments:
1) Who should we be "competing" with? by leftyboy666 — 142
2) Everything is on the table by Dallasdoc — 140
3) The McClatchy article refers to a complaint by Dallasdoc — 118
4) Do We Blame the Weakness in the Dam or by Into The Woods — 115
5) The internet: by zeiben — 115
6) I addressed this by david mizner — 112
7) Here's where we knew we had them: by APA Guy — 112
8) Great conversation by eagle17765 — 109
9) Here's a link to McClatchy article on this by davidkc — 102
10) Well done by david mizner — 92
11) Yes. by GlowNZ — 90
12) As far as I can see by Dallasdoc — 89
13) Excellent comment...and to answer... by bobswern — 88
14) Can you imagine the uproar if Michelle Obama by Lefty Coaster — 84
15) Joel Pett gets it about right, imo by va dare — 83
16) I love this makes both of the site's "factions" by NMDad — 83
17) Lougner is anti-abortion, by Jeff Y — 76
18) "It is closed because there was not enough room by Mogolori — 74
19) I would like to see a Calendar representing by Murphoney — 74
20) Why are we jailing so many of our young men? by Phoenix Woman — 71
21) Yeah, dude, and substitute "single payer" by Superskepticalman — 71
22) So good to hear from you, Congressman Grayson by SeaTurtle — 67
23) Actions speak louder than words. by pkbarbiedoll — 66
24) Sample email by Dallasdoc — 65
25) I had to check for the snark tag. by DawnG — 64
26) Yes. Exactly. by electricgrendel — 62
27) sometimes all we need a simple list by teacherken — 61
28) It's a business model, pure and simple..... by importer — 60
29) I think you may have just by sidnora — 59
30) My deficit solving wishlist: by supercereal — 59
Top Mojo with No Exclusions:
1) End Solitary for everyone. by Deoliver47 — 409
2) Tip Jar by keepemhonest — 407
3) Tip Jar by jamess — 329
4) Tip Jar by Alan Grayson — 301
5) Tip Jar by bobswern — 227
6) Our picture of Loughner mental state by Lefty Coaster — 218
7) Tip Jar by Phoenix Woman — 213
8) Tip Jar by teacherken — 210
9) Quick tip: by SJerseyIndy — 195
10) Tip Jar by Drdemocrat — 174
11) Tip Jar by Eclectablog — 156
12) Who should we be "competing" with? by leftyboy666 — 142
13) Tip Jar by Libby Shaw — 141
14) Everything is on the table by Dallasdoc — 140
15) The McClatchy article refers to a complaint by Dallasdoc — 118
16) Do We Blame the Weakness in the Dam or by Into The Woods — 115
17) The internet: by zeiben — 115
18) I addressed this by david mizner — 112
19) Here's where we knew we had them: by APA Guy — 112
20) Tipped for more honest reporting of where... by Larry Bailey — 111
21) Great conversation by eagle17765 — 109
22) Here's a link to McClatchy article on this by davidkc — 102
23) Well done by david mizner — 92
24) Yes. by GlowNZ — 90
25) As far as I can see by Dallasdoc — 89
26) Excellent comment...and to answer... by bobswern — 88
27) Can you imagine the uproar if Michelle Obama by Lefty Coaster — 84
28) Joel Pett gets it about right, imo by va dare — 83
29) Tip Jar Sorry by LaFeminista — 83
30) I love this makes both of the site's "factions" by NMDad — 83
© sardonyx; all rights reserved
All quotes are the property of the original authors or the websites that held them